Why Africa should listen to ideas from ordinary folk in the coming decade

I see the huge potential, and all the analysis from the African Development Bank and our other organisations with whom we work very closely, see that this is one of the most important parts of Africa’s transformation. And the growth coming from integration could be higher than any of the other areas that we consider important if we get it right.

So, we are Africa’s bank, and it’s a very important role to play. We have many comparative advantages or value-adds, one of which is that we’re trusted by the governments across the continent, so we work very closely with them. We also have a lot of proximity to those governments.

So this is our key role, and it'd be even more important going forward. We have our High 5s, and these are really our investment priorities, and one of them is Light Up and Power Africa.

There is also feed Africa, integrate Africa, industrialise Africa and improve the quality of life of the people of Africa. The fulcrum around which all economies will revolve is the number one priority, energy. But there’s a huge gap, a financing gap with millions of Africans, 600 million, without electricity.

What approach are you using towards bridging that gap?

This requires more investment, and the African Development Bank cannot do it alone. And then, in addition to that, we also need to focus on businesses and industry as well. So we really need to ramp up.

At the African Development Bank, not only are we a financing institution, but also a leveraging institution, and we’re reaching out to many partners, including, actually the World Bank.

We’re building a partnership with the World Bank to light up 300 million people in Africa. But in addition, we need the private sector. We are public sector institutions.

The public sector won’t be able to do that alone, so we’re looking at partnerships, the public and private partnerships, to really ratchet up energy.

So ambitious, isn’t it?

I think it's very ambitious, but it is absolutely doable. These institutions, working in partnership, can achieve that, and they’re working with others as well.

So it’s not just the World Bank and the African Development Bank but we are having big discussions with philanthropies, as well as the private sector.

We’re looking at different ways of financing, different ways of reducing risk, making it better to come in and invest in the energy sector.

If you have 600 million people without access to energy, it’s a massive market, right? So if you get the market conditions right, investors will come and that’s what we’re focused upon.

Some countries produce more power than they consume, yet delivering it to the masses is the problem. How should the problem be handled?

Actually, the strategy talks about access, right? So it’s not just about new access. If you’re not getting a supply of energy, then you don’t really have total access.

In the African Development Bank, we look a lot at the utilities. We look a lot about distribution also. So overall, it’s about access, and it’s also about increasing the energy supply overall.

It is a package of looking at new markets as well as existing markets, and see how they can become more efficient.

You plan to support integration on a continent that also has conflict and political instability. How will you go around this challenge?

In our strategy, we have a big focus on what we call resilience, so we are working with the African Union and governments. And when countries are in a fragile state, we stay right there, and we have a differentiated approach to our countries.

In some countries, you take a different approach when they may be a middle income, but in fragile and conflict affected countries, we also take another approach as well. And we have our African Development Fund, which is for low income countries, and we have a special window in that Fund for countries that have experienced or are experiencing fragility, and it's called the transformation fund. So we have a big focus on countries that are fragile or are conflict affected.

The Strategy looks like a new phase but it is also the unknown. What does the future hold for the bank?

We see that our role will only increase, because there are a lot of challenges, but also opportunities for Africa. And this is exactly what the 10-year strategy outlines. And the key thing to really keep in our minds are the four words that we see as important for Africa and the bank over the next 10 years. And that's: a prosperous, inclusive, resilient and integrated continent.

How much focus does the Bank place on the value of innovation?

Innovation is super important in the strategy. Everybody has to innovate now. So we see already that there's huge innovation across Africa.

The women entrepreneur, she's extremely innovative. The farmer in her field, she's very innovative. But institutions, too, they have to be innovative. And that's why what we're doing is focusing on youth entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs, to definitely look at ways in which we could help them market their goods, create a market which they are trying to reach, and look at value chains, because there's often lots and lots of steps, and sometimes people are unable to get their ideas off the ground, simply because they haven't got access to finance, and the people who are most discriminated are usually informal sector. So this is a big focus. It's recognised in the strategy.